THE REMEDIES OF NATURE. 637 



portance. . . . Purgatives should be continued through the whole course 

 of the disease ; . . . a blister should be applied of sufficient size to em- 

 brace the whole breast " / (" Family Medical Library," pages 174, 183). 

 Croup is an obstruction of the upper air-tubes, induced by the 

 lethargic influence of overfeeding and warm, impure air. How an 

 overloaded stomach reacts on the functions of the respiratory organs, 

 many adults have an opportunity to experience in the strangling sen- 

 sations of a " nightmare," though the respiratory stimulus of the cool 

 night-air generally helps to overcome such affections, especially if the 

 sufferer can ease his lungs by a contraction of his arms or by turning 

 over on his side. But infants are not only more grossly overfed than 

 the most gluttonous adults, while the phlegm-producing quality of 

 their food increases the danger of respiratory obstructions, but that 

 danger is still aggravated by feeding their lungs on the sickening air 

 of an overheated and ill-ventilated bedroom, and still further aggra- 

 vated by swaddling and bandaging them in a way to prevent every 

 motion that might help to ease their distress. Spastnodic croup gen- 

 erally occurs after the establishment of a plethoric diathesis — after 

 persistent overfeeding has turned a baby into a mass of fat and fretful 

 sickliness. Some night, usually after a heavy surfeit, the child is 

 awakened by a feeling of suffocation and gasps for breath till the ob- 

 struction is removed by a violent fit of coughing. " Croup-sirup " 

 (treacle and laudanum) subdues the symptoms by lethargizing the ir- 

 ritability — for a little while, for soon a second and more violent fit 

 has to complete the work of the first paroxysm by expelling the accu- 

 mulated phlegm. 



But a far more dangerous form of the disease is developed when 

 the predisposing causes are aggravated by an inflammation of the 

 larynx. Inflammatory croup, or exudative laryngitis,* does not oc- 

 cixr unawares, but is preceded by a very peculiar cough, a hoarse, 

 cough-like bark, mingled with strange wheezing and metallic sounds. 

 The windpipe is congested, and in that note of warning appeals for re- 

 lief from impure air and deliverance from the influence of a crapulent 

 diet. Nine times out of ten the effect of its appeal is a dose of nar- 

 cotic cough-medicine, more tightly-closed windows and a hotter stove. 

 The process of surfeit in the mean while continues ; the windpipe, al- 

 ready abnormally contracted by its inflamed condition, becomes less 

 and less able to resist the obstructing influence of the accumulated 

 phlegm ; at night, when the exclusion of every breath of fresh air f has 



* Called also "true croup," or "pseudo-membranous larjmgitis," " plastic laryngitis." 

 f " I lately attended an infant, whom I found muflQed up over head and cars in many 

 folds of flannel, though it was in the middle of June. I begged for a little free air to tho 

 poor creature ; but, though this indulgence was granted during my stay, I found it al- 

 ways on my return in the same situation. Death, as might have been expected, soon 

 freed the infant from all its miseries ; but it was not in my power to free the minds of 

 its parents from those prejudices which proved fatal to their child " (Dr. G. G. Nor- 

 wood, " Management of Children," p. 619). 



